Making THE Urban Thriller: 'Meta Take One' | Review
Behind the scenes of an unrivaled filmmaking unravelling.
Dear Moviegoers,
It’s easy to say that the line between “passion” and “obsession” is razor-thin, but it’s difficult to pinpoint when talent justifies that very passion. In Meta Take One, a cinemaniac director struggles to complete his little opus of a movie over the course of a night, before a festival deadline the next day. Of course, the razor-thin margin comes into play early on, when during his shoot, someone literally gets shot. To him, it’s a beautiful moment on celluloid. To his less-than-a-handful crew, it’s high anxiety. An anxiety that I love to see, and one that I enjoyed experiencing with this gem of a movie.
Drawn up in black & white, with occasional moments of grainy color, Meta Take One depicts sociopathic chaos as being on the same level as unrestrained chemistry, that being between director and movie first, and second between director and actor. Making no mistake or confusion about it, for Meta Take One, the tragedy is in the hands of the man behind the camera, and that man is, at least, twofold.
Among the creatives in question, you’d think that the one who is a mere character would be the only obsessive featured. And indeed, John - played as stoic and unemotional by Ej Ezeruo - is a director on a one-man mission of artistic desperation. But that mission is a two-way street, shared by his leading man and tag-along Damon, who dreams of Hollywood stardom and to never go to jail (again). Damon is played by Ernest Emmanuel Peeples, and his turn is absolutely a star-maker. He portrays emotion not unlike someone shifting gears in their car, going from anger to distress to comedy, one by one, in the span of an entire scene, without drastically changing speed. This performance is an expression of an actor in a state of pure zen, showcasing without showing off. He’s great.
The duo, getting footage wherever they can while on their way to the project’s alchemist editor, are being hunted by the police and haunted by gangster henchmen in a dueling scenario of “who they would rather get caught by.” Meta Take One could be called an urban thriller, but this moniker only takes the film so far. Beyond the chase and past the passion, there’s an underlying nightmare to the picture that only lets up when momentarily disguised as a dream. It’s closer to Aronofsky’s Pi than Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, and that trickery of genre is quite a treat.
John has talent, but it’s overinflated. Damon has talent, but it’s under-nurtured. The film they’re making is interesting, but it’s too anarchic to be completed. Such things as they are, there’s only one way for Meta Take One to end. And, while it’s a peculiar finale that doesn’t feel whole, it’s understood as being, at the very least, poetic. And what poets don’t have some anxiety when writing? When creating? I wouldn’t want to meet those who are relaxed, to say the most. 3.5/5
